3D-Printed RGB LED Bracelet Uses Accelerometer

Wearable electronics can be pretty too! This bracelet is a shining example.

Wearable electronics don't always have to be complex sensors for the purpose of improving your health or displaying communication. Sometimes they can just look nice.

Marcus Olssen has done a fantastic job designing this bracelet. You can check out the actual model files at thingaverse and see that he didn't just create a hollow toriod in which to cram some LEDs. He actually designed this in a way that, when assembled, the LEDs are safely enclosed within the bracelet. There is a removable section that holds the Adafruit Trinket and the battery, held into place with neodymium magnets. This removable section serves to make the bracelet easier to put on as well as easier to charge/reprogram.

To get the incredibly solid ring of light, he used the tightly packed 144 LED Neopixel strip from Adafruit. You can see in the video below that LEDs are diffused a bit by the 3D-printed case, but still shine quite well.

Wow!! New trends being set in fashion...and wearable electronics takes part there!! While pondering over wearable electronics circuit, a question occurred to me: how do we have a "real ground" for the circuit? How do we protect the circuit from the Electrostatic Voltage that gets generated in the body? Never thought about it.

ESD gets built up between human and earth. This device will either have its own local "ground" (isolated from the human body) or use the human body as its ground. Even if the potential between the human and earth is lots of kV, there wont be any problem, as no damaging current will flow between the electronics and the human. But it will need sufficient isolation between the electronics and earth (and maybe human) not to spark when bracelet gets between the human and a metallic earth surface.

This bracelet be programmed to do interesting artistic stuff when attached to a dancer :)